BLUFFTON, Ohio - Bluffton University has named Marissa McDaniel as its head softball coach.

McDaniel, formerly an assistant coach at Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, replaces Heather Bruder, who resigned after nine years at Bluffton.

“I am very excited to start my journey at Bluffton,” McDaniel said. “I plan to continue the winning tradition here and to prepare the student-athletes for their future after their four years of softball.”

The 2013 Marietta College graduate spent the last two years at Washington and Jefferson, where the softball team won the Presidents’ Athletic Conference championship in 2014 and qualified for the conference tournament in 2015.

McDaniel earned a bachelor’s degree in sport management at Marietta. A four-year letter winner in softball there, she was named to the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) second team each year from 2011-13. She was also a second-team All-Central Region selection in 2011 and, in 2013, was a team captain as Marietta reached the OAC tournament for the first time since 2007. She earned a spot on the all-tournament team as well.

McDaniel was a member of Marietta’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee in 2012-13. In fall 2012, she completed an internship for the college’s athletics department—working, in part, in game day operations for football and volleyball—and gave hitting and fielding lessons to youth softball players in Marietta. She has given lessons to young players in Washington, Pa., since fall 2013. 

She is also a graduate of Pickerington (Ohio) High School, where she was a Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader for two of her three years in FCA.

At Bluffton, McDaniel inherits a team that won 16 of its last 18 regular-season games last spring and ended the season with a 26-16 record.

-BEAVERS-